A Tangle of Brambles
by LunaRowena
Summary: Hazel Bramble just wanted find land in the Dyrwood so she and her four siblings could settle down, but life is never straightforward when you're an orlan Watcher.


_Dear Hazel,_

 _I hope this letter finds you. I don't know what company you're with these days so I'm just mailing it home. Hopefully Hollis doesn't open it before you._

 _You know what we were talking about before I left, the possibility of settling down somewhere? There's a Lord around here that's giving out cheap land. Real cheap land, Haze. Now I admit that the weather fucking sucks here and it's not friendly towards orlans (where is), but this is a chance to start over. To get Hollis out of the Deadfire before the Príncipi take him to be a shipfinder. To get Hyacinth to a continent with actual academies. Honeysuckle some land to roam on. And you, you can settle down and stop fighting other people's battles for a living._

 _As for me, there's a Temple of Wael in Defiance Bay (the only notable city here) that I've been hanging around at. Write me when you get here and I'll come visit. Give my love to everyone._

 _Love,_

 _Heather_

Hazel Bramble sat in the crumbling hall of Caed Nua reading the crumpled letter for what felt like the hundredth time. Well, she had acquired cheap land, all right. Just at the cost of the previous owner's sanity and life. She sighed as she looked around at the decrepit stonework. _Bit of a fixer upper_ , Hyacinth would say. Understatement of the century. Still, she had come to the Dyrwood looking for someplace to settle and a castle was a step up from a farm. She didn't know anything about farming anyway. And the keep, when it was repaired, was definitely large enough to house the five Bramble siblings.

 _I can have my own room_ , Hazel thought dreamily. _We can all have our own rooms. We can all have_ multiple _rooms_. She currently shared her bedroom in their two bedroom home in the Deadfire with Hollis now that Heather was gone, although she spent most time away from home with her mercenary work. Working for whoever would take an orlan fighter seriously.

That had been the way it was for, what, almost a dozen years? Her off fighting, sending the money home to her four younger siblings while Heather took care of the young ones. She and Heather had a drag-out fight two years ago when Heather had decided to join the priesthood of Wael and go off wandering.

"You're just going to leave them?" Hazel had demanded.

Heather threw up her hands. "They're not babies forever, Haze. Honeysuckle is as old as you were when mom died. If they need watching, Hollis is old enough to watch them. He's older than I was when you left me with the kids."

"I didn't leave you with the kids!"

"Yes you did! You swanned off to join the Blaze Brigade and left me at home!"

"We needed money, Heather! It was a better option than getting further involved in the gangs. It got us off the streets!"

"I know!" Heather huffed. "I'm not blaming you. But they're– _we're_ –not kids anymore. You got your chance to run off, Hazel. This is mine."

"I would prefer it if we could just," Hazel sighed, "settle down somewhere. Away from all of this. The Deadfire's not a good place for orlans."

"Where is a good place for orlans unless you want to go tribal?" Heather sat down next to Hazel and squeezed her hand. "I'll keep a lookout for someplace."

Hazel squeezed Heather's hand back. "Just don't disappear on me forever, okay?"

"Hey, you can't get rid of me that easily."

Despite that promise, Hazel hadn't heard from Heather until this letter. Still, she had followed her sister's assertions out to the Dyrwood and it had, from a certain point of view, panned out. She tried to smooth out the paper again, but it was beyond smoothing.

There was the small matter of her possibly losing her sanity, but that was a _then_ problem. Hazel looked around the hall, her ears twitching from the small cross breeze. This was a _now_ problem. Pulling parchment, pen, and ink out of her satchel, she began to compose a letter on the stone steps.

 _Dear Heather,_

 _I made it to the Dyrwood with some misadventures. I'd rather tell you about them in person. Meet me at Caed Nua, northeast of Defiance Bay. It's ours now. I'll be sending for the others shortly._

 _Love,_

 _Hazel_

Three days later, Hazel stood outside on the grounds, directing the workmen. "Now that we have the Eastern Barbican shored up, I think we should start on the villa so we have some place to sleep."

The foreman looked to Edér for confirmation, but he just shrugged.

"Hey, she's the boss. I'm just along for the ride."

Hazel's left ear twisted in annoyance as the men walked off. "He's been doing that all day."

"What?" asked Edér.

"Checking with you for confirmation for everything I say." She sighed. "I can't even get taken seriously in my own castle."

"You should try being a 'wild' orlan," said a voice from behind. "That's when they get out the pitchforks. And 'castle' is an overstatement." The new orlan wrinkled her nose and tugged on the ends of her copper braids. "Have you considered burning it down and rebuilding, Haze? It looks haunted."

Turning around, Hazel grinned. "It is haunted. Well, was. I think we took care of all of the shadows. Also, don't go in the basement unarmed." She walked forward and hugged her sister. "It's good to see you, Heather."

Heather squeezed her back. "Good to see you, too. Your hair's longer," she twisted a finger around one of the loose, coppery strands.

"It's up, how can you tell?"

"Because it's long enough to put up." Heather pulled back from the embrace and narrowed her eyes at Edér, who was staring at her with a goofy grin on his face. "Can I help you?"

"It's just, you're so," he waved his hands in the air vaguely, "fluffy!"

Hazel sighed inwardly. Edér, while generally well meaning, was not the most racially sensitive individual she'd ever met, and Heather was sensitive about being a more furry, 'wild' orlan. For good reason, as the more furry orlans received the even shorter end of the stick.

Heather stared at him, incredulous, before turning to Hazel. "Where did you pick this guy up?" The fur on her neck poofed out as her hackles stood on end.

"He was smoking in front of a tree full of corpses."

"Smoking what, exactly?"

Hazel laughed. "I didn't ask. Heather, this is Edér Teylecg formally of Gilded Vale. He's not going to run you out of town with a pitchfork. Edér, this is my sister, Heather. Her bite is, in fact, as bad as her bark, so I don't care how fluffy she is. Aloth's around here, somewhere. Now shake hands and play nice."

Heather rolled her eyes and extended her hand at orlan height. "How do you do?" she asked, with an over-the-top formal accent.

Edér had to bend down to clasp her hand. "Nice to meet you, ma'am." He whispered to Hazel on the side, "Does this mean she's not going to let me pet her ears?"

"I heard that!" Heather promptly withdrew her hand. "I may not be a lady, but I'm no doxy."

Hazel winced. "That's, uh, a bit intimate, Edér."

"How would you like it if someone just grabbed your ears?" snapped Heather.

"Uh," Edér pondered. "I don't rightly know. It would be a bit strange."

"Exactly!" Heather linked her arm with Hazel's. "Now show me around, and tell me everything about how you wound up with a haunted castle."

Hazel walked arm and arm with her sister. "Well, we came here to meet with the previous owner except he had gone insane so we had to kill him and then his steward, who is a sentient chair, declared me the new owner. Also, I'm a Watcher now."

"Tell me everything _in greater detail_."


End file.
